TONY IOMMI On Original BLACK SABBATH Reunion: 'It's Like We've Never Been Apart'

June 7, 2013

Martin Boulton of Australia's The Age recently conducted an interview with BLACK SABBATH guitarist Tony Iommi. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the making of the new BLACK SABBATH album, "13":

Iommi: "When we started this project, we went to [producer] Rick's [Rubin] house and he played the first [BLACK SABBATH] album and said, 'How long is it since you've heard it?' So he was just trying to get us back into that vibe and we got it … getting back to the basics.

"Over the years, you do get carried away with doing different things … changing your sound, and god knows what else, but with this one, there's a lot of elements of those first albums, and while there's a lot of different stuff going on, it worked out really well."

"Rick was saying it doesn't matter how long they [the songs] are, so we played a lot of the tracks live, and I haven't done that for a while. I kept thinking 'we can re-do this part or that part', but Rick was saying 'no, we'll keep that, that's good', so it was very peculiar, but just a different way of doing things for us.

"He didn't want Ozzy [Osbourne] doing any harmonies, he just wanted it basic and singing in a lower pitch. We got into a stage on 'Never Say Die!' where Ozzy would be singing high in the studio and when we got on stage, he couldn't do it, but on this [album], he kept it at a range he can do [on stage]."

On working with other singers under the BLACK SABBATH banner, including Ronnie James Dio, Glenn Hughes and Tony Martin:

Iommi: "It's been really good for me to work with all those people,. Ronnie [who died in 2010] was great, and Glenn is an old friend with a great voice, and they're the sort of people who don't exist that much. I like working with different people and people like that … just all class."

On what it feels like to be playing with Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler again:

Iommi: "It's like we've never been apart, to be honest. We've all been friends for so long and it's been great getting back together — really good — and a really good way to finish off, I think, with the original lineup."

Read more from The Age.

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